August 25, 2005
America Used to Pride Itself on Championing Success. Now the Busheviks Cheer on Failure and Smear Patriots Who Would Make America More Secure.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
It's been the story of Bush's life.
Time after time the man failed until friends of his father bailed him out. It happened with his failure to serve in Vietnam, his missing months of non-service in the National Guard, his alleged drug conviction, his failure at oil drilling, his failure at everything he touched. This was a guy who was asked to leave the Carlyle Board -- the incestuous money mill for Bush Dynasty loyalists -- because he
didn't have anything to offer.
Then Karl Rove "adopted" him, like Henry Higgins adopted Eliza
Doolittle in "My Fair Lady." There was that fateful moment that Rove loves to recount when -- as Poppy Bush's go-fer and driver -- he picked a young George W. Bush up from the Union Station in Washington, D.C., and like a sculptor eyeing a nice slab of marble, thought to himself "There's my meal ticket. This guy is named Bush and in a $2000 suit I can make something of him. He's got the height, the Eddie Haskell look of false earnestness, and the right cocky swagger."
Of course, Rove turned Bush into a political marketing success,
creating an image of a Governor and then a President out of an empty suit with a political "brand" name.
But before the pitch man with the golden shiv for character
assassination teamed up with the ne'er do well son of a declining WASPish East Coast dynasty that had decided to put on cowboy boots, Bush was always being pulled out of the frying pan and the messes he created by Daddy's friends. The only exception was his money-making stint with the Texas Rangers, where he was essentially "used" for his name in return for a "favored son" financial share in the team. And
the value of his stock soared due to he and his partners using eminent domain to steal real estate from surrounding citizens, which then inflated the value of the franchise.
So, when you look at George's history, you can understand Iraq from a different angle. Yes, it was a war that sprung from Neo-con fantasies of being "Masters of the Universe," a religious crusade, a motivation to control Iraq's oil, a desire to reward GOP corporate campaign contributors with war profits, a political need to turn Bush into a "War President" to then insulate him from any criticism (which would
then be termed unpatriotic), Bush's psychological need to prove that he was tougher than his Dad, etc. -- yes, the Iraq War was due to all these motivations and more.
But, in the end, the Iraq War is really just another George W. Bush fiasco, the kind in which historically Daddy or his friends arrived to pull his butt out of the mess that he had created -- and clean things up before governmental authorities stepped in.
But now, the Iraq War is too big of a monstrous disaster for Daddy to fix for Junior.
The American public is split into several basic camps, as we, as a nation, try to figure out how to salvage lives and our national pride from another George W. Bush's epic "shock and awe" calamity:
- The true believers who will continue to follow George W. Bush over the cliff because they believe he is the "branding image" created by Rove: an earnest Christian white guy, just like them, who is conducting a divine war against the heathens. These people are supported by the parasitic partisan right wing media machine, whose job is to cheerlead Bush on as a "great leader" as he drives America over a cliff.
- The pragmatists who realize that the war is unwinnable, that Bush has created another one of his personal failures, that Rumsfeld is demented and incompetent, but that the prestige of the United States is at stake, so we can't pull out of Iraq because the sole remaining superpower doesn't cut and run, even if it's been led into a trap by an incompetent leader. So we continue to compound the original mistake
by continuing to fight on for the mere sake of showing force and saving face.
- The Republican elected officials who are starting to worry about the toll that the war will take on the fate of the GOP in the 2006 elections. This group doesn't know what the heck to do, but Chuck Hagel is one of them who has put his nose to the wind and can smell the rebellion in the heartland.
- The Democratic leadership in D.C. who has been emasculated to the point that they are too timid to catch up with public opinion on the war, exemplified by Joe "Wrong Way Corrigan" Biden who believes we should send MORE troops to Iraq. These Democrats are limping behind national opinion and Republican dissenters like Hagel.
- The patriots who are truly concerned about America's national
security and want an o rderly withdrawal of troops, international involvement in cleaning up the mess in Iraq, a removal of American military bases, and an emphasis on fighting terrorism, not having more Americans die for Bush's folly. One of the few Democratic senators in this camp is Russell Feingold.
- The patriots who know that a wrong war cannot be made right and want the immediate withdrawal of troops and a renewed emphasis on strategically fighting terrorism in order to best ensure our national security.
It should be noted that the latter two groups also want the Bush Administration to be held accountable for betraying the national security of the United States of America and lying the nation into an ill-fated and mismanaged war.
In Idaho, Bush declared that "war protestors...make our nation less secure." Nothing has made our nation less secure than the Bush Administration. The people who want to stop our soldiers from needlessly dying are concerned that Bush is imperiling the national security of the U.S. due to his misjudgment, vanity, and partisan agenda.
Wealthy, elite pals of Poppy Bush could bail Junior out of the many fiascoes and jams he got himself into prior to Karl Rove doing his Henry Higgins bit on him.
But a war that has killed nearly 2,000 American service men and women, wounded thousands upon and thousands, killed more than 100,000 Iraqis, and cost American taxpayers billions upon billions of dollars is something that even Daddy cannot fix.
Others are left, as usual, to clean up the rich, frat boy's mess. But he outdid himself this time, and the powers that be don't know quite what to do.
We do: indict, convict and imprison the ringleaders of the Bush
Administration and don't let another soldier or Iraqi die for "Baby Doc" Bush's latest personal failure.
It only takes some courage to stand up to the bullies who betray America. That would be the patriotic thing to do. |
